Howdy Ma'am!

Levi walked in the door the other day with Pops and looked at Grammy and said, "Howdy, Ma'am!"

He's a pretty cute little cowboy if I do say so myself.

Music Man

Levi loves music.  He especially likes to ride in the car with Dad because "Daddy listens to good music...loud!" (And partly because Daddy drives fast- according to Levi).   He loves playing guitars with his Daddy, but his newest favorite thing is to make a band.  He gathers his instruments and performs for us.

I tried to get a video of him sing his They Might Be Giants song, but no luck yet... 

Lake Whitney

We spent this past weekend in Lake Whitney with my dad's family.  My grandparents, aunt and uncle, parents, cousins (and their families) and my sister and her husband were all able to be there for the weekend.  My cousin found us an amazing house that was perfect for all 25 of us!

There were plenty of things to keep everyone entertained- ping pong, pool, shuffle board, a nice backyard perfect for hitting golf balls, and of course a wide variety of games (which always includes Scrabble!).  A little bit of relief from the heat would've made the backyard and outdoor kitchen a little bit more enjoyable.  

 Mom and Aunt Kristi

 Ping pong, pool, shuffleboard

 The little guys hanging out on the GIANT beanbags

 "Playing" darts with Grammy

Sitting around talking (we're good at this!)

My sweet grandparents

It was a fast weekend, but we had so much fun catching up with everyone.  There were quite a few new cousins (or 2nd cousins or whatever...) this time, and we all enjoyed watching them interact.  Levi was very confused about who all of these kids actually were.  I kept telling him they were his cousins, but he kept insisting they were just friends.  He enjoyed playing with all of them though!

 Pop and Gigi and all 7 of their great grands 

(We'll have 2 more to add to this picture next time!)

 I LOVE the silly faces in this picture!!

Getting this picture could be an entire blog post in itself...

You can see from this picture that my cousins and I share the same height challenges.  :)  There are quite a few TALL husbands, and they enjoyed towering over (and poking fun at) all of us.  My sister is by far the tallest of this crew of grandkids, and she isn't all that tall!  

Pop and Gigi and 6 of their 9 granddaughters

We've already started planning our next get together, and we can't wait!  We missed a few family members this weekend and are hoping that the entire family will be able to be there next time!

Big Boy Room

We have worked furiously all summer moving and redecorating 3 rooms in our house.  We consolidated our office and guest room, moved Levi into his big boy room, and fixed up the nursery for our new little guy.  It has been a lot of work (and we're not done yet), but so far most of us are loving the changes.  The jury's still out on whether or not Levi likes his new room, but I think it will grow on him.

His new room looks pretty similar to what his nursery looked like with the exception of the new twin sized bed.  We cleaned out and moved some toys into his room as well to make room for some of the baby items that will soon be decorating our living room.  

So far, the bed has not been the battle I thought it would be!  I had visions of having to use some Super Nanny techniques to get my adventurous child to stay in his bed, but luckily it has been a smooth transition.  I'm still not sure he's figured out that he can get up whenever he wants!  (I'm going to have to let him in on this little secret when it comes to potty training...)  He will lay and talk to himself, his treasures and play during nap time or in the morning before we go get him.  

A few months ago when we were visiting Mat's parents, Levi noticed the glow in the dark stars in Mat's room.  He loved them and has been talking about putting them in his big boy room since then.  Mat put some up for him the other night, and Levi loves them!  He loves to turn the lights out at night and see all of his stars.  After our nighttime routine, he'll lay there and talk about the stars and how much he likes them.  We also hung this little "art line" (Thank you pinterest!)  We need to add a few new pieces of art (and take down the turkey and ghost), but Levi loves having his art displayed in his room.

Sometimes Levi says he loves his new room, but most of the time, he's still not sure about it.  Every once in a while he'll even tell me he'd like to go back to his crib.  He really doesn't like the idea of someone else sleeping in there.  He's going to have to get used to that!  

It's been a summer full of changes for our little guy (and we've had some bumps in the road), but overall he's done amazingly well!  I'm glad we've done so much this summer so that he has a few months of his new normal before we have one more big change- little brother!  

Why Does the Sun Shine?

Mat enjoys a wide variety of music, and one of his favorite bands has always been They Might Be Giants.  They have a few kids songs that he's introduced to Levi, and this one has become Levi's newest favorite song.

I really like listening to Levi try to sing the words "incandescent gas."  He attempts to sing along with most of the song but really belts out the lines "temperature of millions of degrees" and "Yo ho! It's hot!  The sun is not a place where we could live..."

He also likes to randomly bust out sun facts such as "The sun is millions of miles away."  

This was Levi's choice of song today before nap time.
I did my best to make it through the first part of the song.  :)